Strategic Leadership Coaching

PAMPI 2011 Education Institute - Cultivating Productive Conflict

If you attended my workshop on Cultivating Productive Conflict today at the PAMPI 2011 Education Institute here are the handouts that I mentioned.

Download Tki-brochure

Download Conflict management handout

I will leave these handouts up for the next few weeks so feel free to share them with friends who may be interested.

Steering Clear of Emotional Landmines: How to avoid explosive conflict on your team

Emotional Landmines are those unexpected conflicts that come out of nowhere to blow teams off course.  They get planted in the terrain ahead when a team member chooses to bury their ideas, opinions, and feelings instead of sharing them with the team.  The process of withholding genuinely held ideas often creates a sense of frustration in the team member.  Over time that sense of frustration can build increasing the likelihood that the team member will have an emotional explosion. Then before you are even aware of what has happened your team is mired in conflict.  Emotional Landmines often get triggered by what seem to be very minor things a comment, gesture, or behavior that leads to a reaction that seems disproportionate.  The real problem is the emotional pressure that has slowly built up in that team member from all the things they have left unsaid. Suddenly an idea or opinion that may have been harmless if shared in real time becomes supercharged with emotion. 

 So why would a team member leave their ideas, opinions, and feelings unsaid, the reasons are numerous, but it usually boils down to how a team handles conflict.  Have you ever been on a team that was characterized by major explosive conflict?  Did it make it difficult for the team to accomplish its primary task?  Did you just assume that the team had members with strong personalities who liked to defend their turf?  This is a common assumption when teams are defeated by conflict, but may not be the whole truth.  You see it is essential for healthy team functioning that conflict or unfiltered debate of ideas and opinions be allowed.  When teams do not allow for thorough expression of ideas from all the team members they are often laying emotional landmines that they will step on later.    

So how does a team leader avoid these landmines?  The key is to create an atmosphere of real time unfiltered debate that engages each team member.  Every team member needs to be heard on every issue even if they don't see it as their area.  Why is this important, two reasons?  The first is that it engages the wisdom of the team, which is why we work in teams to begin with, the combined experience and knowledge of the team, enhances the content and the outcome.  Second, it creates a space for every person to be heard, which reinvests their emotional energy back into the team instead of into landmines.  A simple way to incorporate this strategy into your team meeting is with the lightening round.  The lightening round is a quick check-in with each team member on the issues discussed in the meeting.  The goal is to encourage the team to not hold back on their honest opinions of the topics discussed.  If the lightening round surfaces items for further examination then spend some time processing those ideas.  The key is that everyone is heard from in the moment even if it is a brief comment.

Creating Safety in Your Organization

I just found this very Interesting article on Creating Safety in Your Organization from the Success.com blog.  What are the consequences of having an unsafe environment in your organization?

Fall is Here, Happy Thanksgiving!

Many people see the fall as a time to refocus and get back into the swing of things.  Maybe it has something to do with being conditioned from an early age to buy school supplies in the fall.  Or perhaps it has something to do with football season kicking into high gear.  Whatever the reason, you may be feeling focused and ready for new challenges, but what about your team?  How focused are they?  Still more important are they even functioning like an actual team?  Patrick Lencioni in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team outlines the attributes that every team needs to master for a competitive advantage.  The Five Dysfunctions listed in order of importance are:

• Absence of Trust
• Fear of Conflict
• Lack of Commitment
• Avoidance of Accountability
• Inattention to Results

The key starting point to any teams success in these five areas is leadership.  Unless the team leader models the way, no team will fully leverage its competitive advantage.  How well are you modeling the way for your team?  If you would like to find out take our complimentary team leader assessment based on the Five Dysfunctions of a Team model.  The assessment includes a free phone debriefing session to review the results.  We are only offering this free assessment to our blog readers through the end of 2009 so take advantage of this opportunity soon.

Just trust me.

"Trust is a peculiar resource; it is built rather than depleted by use." – Unknown

We have all heard it at various times from wide a range of leaders, "Just trust me". This simple statement uttered so casually begs the question, "why should I trust you?" a query every discerning follower should be asking. The statement also assumes a point of view that trust is exclusively dependent on the trustor a token given arbitrarily to any leader who asks. The reality is that trust is a product of our mutual interdependence on one another with each party contributing something to the relationship to build trust. The trustor contributes their belief in the trustee and a willingness to take action on the word of the trustee. The trustee contributes their observable behavior of trustworthiness. So instead of imploring followers to trust them leaders would be better served by asking themselves if they are displaying trustworthy behavior? There are three benchmarks that a leader should be aware of when calculating their trustworthiness Ability, Integrity, and Benevolence.

1. Ability – Do I display the knowledge, skills, and competencies that are expected of one in my position?

2. Integrity – Do my words and actions match up? Are my values consistent with the values of those who I would like to lead?

3. Benevolence – Am I concerned about the welfare of the people I am leading?

The more a leader displays these qualities the greater the likelihood that trust will grow with their constituents. So contrary to the commonly practiced belief that trust is an abstract condition that is beyond our control; trust has some very tangible components that are well within our control.  What steps are you taking to build trust with your followers? 

If you would like to further unpack the issue of trust I recommend you read the article by Roy Lewicki and Edward Tomlinson at the link below http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/trust_building/?nid=1210